So…be careful out there.
Bwahahahahahaha!…
DISTAL MUSE – OBSERVATIONS, OPINIONS, EPHEMERA, & VIEWS
Just ’cause.
And I didn’t want to put up something predictable, like a full moon or a werewolf or blood spatter.
Happy Hallowe’en. Be safe.…
I know, I said no more political posts till after the election, but I couldn’t NOT put this one up. Before you freak out, watch all the way through. Then, I’m sure, no matter who you’re voting for, everyone will have a reason to freak out.
Oh, and one more thing. Check this post by P.Z. Myers. This pretty well sums up my feelings as well. I’ve had a low-level concern about the congressional elections longer and more consistently than the presidential campaign, but really, we ought to be worrying more about local elective offices even more—offices which traditionally get the lowest voter interest.…
Hard upon the heals of my previous panegyric, a placeholder.
Last week Donna and I enjoined our first dinner train, the Columbia Star out of—you guessed it—Columbia, Missouri. Here’s a photograph and a promise that I will shortly be writing about it at more length. Meanwhile, have a pleasant next few days.…
Another GOP candidate has stirred the hornet’s nest of women’s rights and abortion by making one of the most blatantly absurd statements— no, that’s inaccurate, mainly because there is no way to gauge “most absurd” in this context. So many of them have come out and said shit everyone knew they were thinking but till recently had managed to either not say or have couched in more sophisticated and euphemistic language.
Richard Mourdock said that any pregnancy resulting from rape is “God’s intent.”
How to delicately respond to this…?
Oh, fuckit. This is bullshit.
The basic assumption of Biblical literalism these asshats have been using is a compendium of tribal law no one would approve across the board anymore because we don’t believe that shit anymore!…
This past weekend I attended our local convention, Archon. It’s a St. Louis convention that’s not actually in St. Louis, for many reasons too convoluted to go into here, and this one was number 36. Which means, with a couple of exceptions, I’ve been going to it for three decades. (Our first con was Archon 6, which featured Stephen King as GoH, and thus was something of a media circus. I met several writers, some whose work I knew and loved, others of whom I just then became acquainted—George R.R. Martin, Robin Bailey, Charles Grant, Joe Haldeman, Warren Norwood. Some have passed away, others are still working.)…
I take partial responsibility. After all, my parents had more than a little to do with it.
I usually forget my birthday until the week before, when everyone starts reminding me. This year, though, I’m paying a bit more attention because, well, I’m here to have one. That was, for the first time ever, more than an academic question recently. So for that I am grateful to many people, most of whom I do not know and may never see again—doctors and nurses and even some folks who thought good thoughts without my knowing—and for the love of my friends.
I have pretty much everything one could ask for out of life. …
This weekend I’ll be attending the local science fiction convention, Archon. I’ve only missed a couple of these since 1982, when Donna and I went to out very first SF convention, Archon 6. Stephen King was guest of honor and we got to meet many of the writers we’d been reading and enjoying, some, at least in my case, for many years. Until that year I hadn’t even known such things happened.
Science fiction for me was part of the fundamental bedrock of my life’s ambitions. Not just writing it or reading it, but in a very real sense living it. …
This will be brief. The Supreme Court is set to hear another case about affirmative action in education. A Texas student was not accepted for the University of Texas and has claimed that the only difference between her and other students who did get in is her skin color—she’s white.
Now, by all accounts, she is an excellent student. According to UT, though, she wasn’t good enough. They use two metrics to select enrollees—academic scores and what they call “personal achievement” indices, which include extracurricular activities and an essay which is supposed to reveal leadership potential and other qualities that can’t be scored on a test. …
“Do you expect me to talk?”
“No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!”
The exchange between Bond and Goldfinger may sum up the attitude of many who are tired, offended, or otherwise ambivalent or disinterested in the absurdly long career of the improbable James Bond, 007. Even those of us who have been more or less unable to let go our adolescent attachment to the character have doubtless wondered why he hasn’t just died.
He should have, certainly after the criminal treatment he endured toward the middle and end of the Roger Moore years. All due respect to Mr.…